The leading edges of this Lear are heated. No one at Prior would offer any comments on this incident other than to ask me how I knew about it. However, I did hear unoffically that the anti-ice system had most likely failed. I also got the impression from the unoffical banter that the pilots were very close to an accident.

Also, ATC can declare an emergency for you if they deem it necessary, and just give you the priority services. "Emergency" wasn't verbalized in this case, but the controller probably treated it as such.